June 4, 2020

How to lose weight fast 3 simple, science-based steps

Wie Du schnell Gewicht verlierst 3 einfache, wissenschaftlich basierte Schritte

There are many ways to lose weight quickly. However, most of them will leave you feeling hungry and unsatisfied. Unless you have iron willpower, hunger will cause you to quickly abandon these plans.

The plan we will describe here will:

Significantly reduce your appetite
Make you lose weight faster without hunger
Improve your metabolic health at the same time.

Here is a simple 3 step plan to lose weight fast

1. reduce your sugar and starch intake

The most important part is to reduce your sugar and starch (carbohydrate) intake. If you do this, then your hunger levels will decrease and you will end up eating fewer calories (1). And instead of burning carbohydrates for energy, your body will start to feed on stored fat.

Another benefit of reducing carbohydrate intake is that it lowers insulin levels, which encourages your kidneys to excrete excess sodium and water from the body. This reduces potential bloating and unnecessary water weight (2, 3).

It is not uncommon to lose up to 5 kilos (and sometimes even more) of weight during the first week of such a diet, this weight being made up of body fat and water weight. Below is a graph from a study (4) comparing low-carbohydrate and low-fat diets in overweight or obese women. As you can easily see, the group on the very low-carb diet lost much more weight over a 24-week period than the group on the low-fat diet.

What was particularly interesting in this context was that the low-carbohydrate group was allowed to eat until they were full, while the members of the low-fat group had to reduce their calories in a targeted manner and felt hungry.

Reduce your carbohydrate intake and you will automatically start to eat fewer calories without feeling hungry (5). Simply put, fat loss works on autopilot when you reduce your carbohydrate intake.

Summary: Eliminating sugar and starch (carbohydrates) from your diet will reduce your appetite, lower your insulin levels and help you lose weight faster without hunger.

2. eat protein, fat and vegetables

Each of your meals should include a source of protein, a source of fat and low-carb vegetables. If you structure your meals in this way, it will automatically bring your carbohydrate intake into the recommended range of 20 to 50 grams per day.

Protein sources

Meat: Beef, poultry, pork, lamb, etc.
Fish and seafood: salmon, trout, shrimp, etc. etc.
Eggs: Whole eggs including the yolk are best.

The importance of protein cannot be overemphasized. Protein has been shown to increase metabolic rate by 80 to 100 kcal per day (6, 7, 8).

Protein-rich meals can also reduce cravings and obsessive thoughts about food by 60%, halve cravings for late night snacks and make you feel so full that you automatically eat 441 kcal less per day - all just by adding protein to your diet (9, 10). When it comes to losing weight, protein is the king of nutrients.

Low carbohydrate vegetables

Broccoli
Cauliflower
spinach
Tomatoes
Cabbage
Brussels sprouts
Cucumber
Etc.

Don't shy away from loading up your plate with low-carb vegetables. You can eat massive amounts of these vegetables without raising your net carbohydrate intake above 20 to 50 grams per day. A diet based mainly on meat and vegetables contains all the fiber, vitamins and minerals you need to stay healthy.

Sources of fat

Olive oil
coconut oil
avocado oil
butter

Eat 2 to 3 meals a day. If you feel hungry in the afternoon, add a fourth meal. Don't be afraid to eat fat, as trying to eat low-carb and low-fat at the same time is the perfect recipe for failure. You will feel miserable and give up on the plan.

Summary: Make each meal consist of a protein source, a fat source and low-carb vegetables. This will get you into the 20 to 50 gram carbohydrate range and significantly reduce your hunger.

3. train 3 days a week with weights

You don't have to exercise to lose weight, but it is recommended that you do. The best option is to work out at the gym 3 to 4 days a week. Do a warm-up workout and move some weights. If you are new to the gym, ask a trainer for advice.

Working out with weights will help you burn a lot of calories and prevent your metabolism from slowing down, which is a common side effect of weight loss (11, 12). Studies have shown that you can even gain some muscle during low-carb diets while losing significant amounts of body fat (13).

If training with weights is not an option for you, then you can also do some cardio workouts such as walking, jogging, running, cycling or swimming.

Summary: It is best to do some form of resistance training such as training with weights. If this is not an option, cardio workouts can also be effective.

Optional - Perform a carbohydrate refeed once a week

You can give yourself a little diet break one day a week and eat more carbohydrates. Many people prefer to do this on Saturdays. It is important to stick to healthy sources of carbohydrates such as oatmeal, rice, quinoa, potatoes, fruit, etc.

However, this only applies to that one higher-carb day - if you start doing this more than once a week, you won't see much success with this plan. If you need to have a cheat meal and eat something unhealthy, then do so on that day.

You should be well aware of the fact that cheat meals or carbohydrate refeeds are not necessary - however, they can help to increase levels of some fat-burning hormones such as leptin and thyroid hormones (14, 15).

You will gain some weight during your refeed day, but most of this will be water weight that you will lose over the next 1 to 2 days.

Summary: Having one day a week where you eat more carbohydrates is perfectly fine, although not necessary.

What about calories and portion control?

It is not necessary to count calories as long as you keep your carbohydrate intake very low and stick to protein, fat and low-carb vegetables. If you still want to count carbohydrates, you will find many calorie calculators on the internet. There are also a variety of apps that can help you count your daily calories.

The primary goal of this plan is to keep your carbohydrate intake below 20 to 50 grams per day and consume the rest of your calories in the form of protein and fat.

9 weight loss tips to make things easier (and faster)

Here are 9 more tips that will help you lose weight even faster:

Eat a high-protein breakfast: Eating a high-protein breakfast has been shown to reduce cravings and calorie intake throughout the day (16, 17).
Avoid sugary drinks and fruit juices: These are the most fattening things you can put in your body and avoiding them can help you lose weight (18, 19).
Drink water half an hour before your meals: One study showed that drinking water half an hour before meals increased weight loss by 44% over 3 months (20).
Eat soluble fiber: Studies have shown that soluble fiber can reduce body fat - especially in the abdominal area. Fiber supplements such as glucomannan can also help (21, 22).
Drink coffee or tea: If you're a coffee or tea drinker, drink as many of these caffeinated beverages as you like, as the caffeine they contain can increase your metabolic rate by 3 to 11% (23, 24, 25).
Eat mostly whole, unprocessed foods: Base the majority of your diet on whole foods. These are healthier, more filling and less likely to make you overeat.
Eat your food slowly: Fast eaters gain more weight over time. Eating slowly will make you feel fuller and increase levels of weight-loss hormones (26, 27).
Weigh yourself every day: Studies show that people who weigh themselves every day are more likely to lose weight and maintain their new weight in the long term (28, 29).
Make sure you get enough quality sleep every night: Poor sleep is one of the biggest risk factors for weight gain. So it's important that you pay attention to your sleep (30).

Summary: It's most important that you stick to the 3 rules, but there are a few more things that can accelerate your progress.

How fast you will lose weight (and other benefits)

You can expect to lose 5 to 10 pounds (in some cases more) of weight during the first week. This will be followed by consistent weight loss. I personally lose 3 to 4 pounds each week when I strictly follow these strategies.

If you haven't dieted before, then it will probably go a little faster. The more weight you have to lose, the faster you will lose it.

During the first few days you may feel a little strange. Your body has been burning carbohydrates all these years, so it may take some time to get used to burning fat instead. This is also known as the 'keto flu' and usually passes after a few days. Adding some extra salt to your diet can help with this.

Despite many decades of "anti-fat" hysteria, a low-carb diet can improve your health in many ways:

Blood sugar tends to drop during a low-carb diet (31).
Triglyceride levels tend to decrease (32).
The levels of small, dense LDL cholesterol particles will decrease (33, 34).
The levels of the "good" HDL cholesterol will rise (35).
Blood pressure will improve significantly (36, 37).
And to make things even better, it seems to be just as easy to follow a low-carb diet as a low-fat diet.

Summary: You can expect to lose a lot of weight, but it will depend on the individual as to how quickly this will ultimately happen. Low carbohydrate diets also improve your health in many ways.

You don't have to starve yourself to death to lose weight

If you have an existing medical condition, you should speak to your doctor before making any changes to your diet, as the diet plan outlined here may reduce your need for certain medications.

By reducing carbohydrates and therefore insulin levels, you change your hormonal environment and make your body and mind "want" to lose weight. This leads to drastically reduced appetite and hunger, eliminating the main reason why most people give up quite quickly on conventional weight loss methods.

This has been shown to help you lose up to two to three times as much weight as a typical low-fat, calorie-restricted diet (38, 39, 40). Another benefit for the more impatient is the initial loss of water weight, which can make a big difference on the scales the next morning.

With this plan, you can eat until you're full and still lose a ton of fat. Welcome to diet paradise.

References:

Source: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/how-to-lose-weight-as-fast-as-possible

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